This is Not a Chick Flick
by meganechan720
Summary: Raph tries to ignore his growing attraction to Angel. It's not a chick flick.
1. sometimes it struck him

_A/N: So much love to Willowslament or Willowfly or Ash or whoever you are. Best beta I've ever had._

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><p>The first time Angel was allowed into the lair without a blindfold, they had a party.<p>

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><p>Sometimes it hit him, literally struck him like a fist, like a Foot ninja had just sucker punched him out of nowhere. He'd stand there, frozen, head reeling, for a long moment. And then he'd take in a deep breath, think about something else, and probably go punch something, for good measure.<p>

It hit him in the middle of a fight once. He faltered and let in a strike he should have been able to block easily, and he could tell by the grim set of Leo's mouth that his brother was blaming himself for the blood pouring out of Raph's nose. He swiped the proffered cloth from Leo's hand with a growl and crouched. His brother sat silent, looking at Raph from the corner of his eye as he tried to staunch the flow, and when Raph gave one last bloody snort and stood up, ready to go again, Leo stood as well, slipping down into stance without saying a word.

"What, no lecture?" Raph taunted as they exchanged tentative blows, trying to find their rhythm again.

"No," his brother said infuriatingly, coming at him with the same strike that had caught him off guard, which Raph blocked perfectly this time. The fact that Leo _didn't_ smirk like a pleased teacher at this was only more infuriating, and he could feel his brain working behind the instinctive dance of block-strike-parry that barely took up any conscious thought anymore. By the time he finished pouring his anger into his brother for safe-keeping it was very late at night, and Leo left for bed without saying anything. Raph, anger spent but fists still restless, beat out a trance on the punching bag and tried to figure out what part of his world was so out of place that it could make him lose it in a fight like that. (He tried _not_ to think about Leo and the empty space where a smirk should have been.)

And then it hit him while Angel was over, and everything came together at once and left him breathless and still and wishing he could just somehow _not know_.

* * *

><p>"<em>I'm being lectured by a giant rat on my anger issues," she said distantly. "This is so weird."<em>

_ "What're you complaining about?" Raph said, totally deadpan. "Happens to me all the time."_

_ She gave him one startled look, and then threw back her head and laughed._

* * *

><p>He's pretty sure that's when it started.<p> 


	2. it's hard sometimes

He'd had the same stupid crush on April they all had, and had probably gotten over it the fastest, because even at the time he knew it was shallow and juvenile. She was the first girl in their lives, and quite pretty to boot, so naturally he'd had a crush on her, but he'd figured after that he was set. Girls were no longer going to be a problem, because he'd gotten the silliness out of his system, like being immunized or something.

But Angel gets under his skin when she isn't even _around_. Mike's favorite video game for weeks is called _Angel Sanctuary _and every time he talks about it Raph twitches. It's ten times worse when she's actually there, Raph having developed a dizzying hyper-awareness of her that turns him into a mute idiot whose compass no longer points north but Angel-ward like some lovelorn puppy. It makes him sick.

He takes to avoiding her, made more difficult by the fact that somehow she is now everywhere. She comes over to the lair often, she lives in Casey's neighborhood, and he even runs into her sometimes on supply runs. It is nuts. It is _driving_ him nuts. And soon the punching bag is no longer enough.

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><p>But somehow even taking down thirty Purple Dragons all by himself isn't worth seeing the disappointment in her eyes when she finds him, bloodied and hideous, in her bathroom, knowing he needs stitches and making due with butterfly strips. They stare at each other for a long moment, and then she sighs and closes the door behind her, sitting down on the toilet and looking out the window.<p>

"Are you ever gonna stop?" she murmurs once, after he asks where the hydrogen peroxide is. He pours it over a deep cut, reveling evilly in the sting, and decides he can't pretend he hadn't heard her.

"No."

She sighs again, and looks back out the window. "That's what I thought."

* * *

><p>It hit him during practice once, and Splinter snapped at him to concentrate, something that hadn't happened in years. Leo had gotten on his case about it afterwards and Raph had been in the middle of formulating a scathing response when the thought struck him that if these were the people he was going to give his utmost devotion and loyalty to for the rest of his life, then perhaps he ought to be a little more civil to them. So he had calmly responded and walked away, causing his brother more consternation and worry than if he'd just yelled back at him.<p>

Raph feels that this is tremendously unfair.

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><p>This is as close as Angel can get: friend and ally and even sister. And close she gets. But there are so many reasons that Raph cannot <em>date<em> her that he recites them like a chant sometimes; closes his eyes and mumbles to himself like a crazy old hobo or a crazy old monk:

_I can't abandon my family. _His clan comes first, even before April and Casey, who are as much his brother and sister as anyone.

_I can't die for her. _Should the choice arise to save one of his brothers or her, he would choose the brother, and the worst part is he wouldn't even think about it.

_I can't make her happy. _His personality is completely unsuited to having a girlfriend. He's loud and uncouth and doesn't have much of a filter, he objectifies women, he drinks too much and he keeps too much to himself. And he knows it. Getting along with his brothers is a daily struggle, one he's come close to losing too many times to even think about trying to be that close with someone else.

_I can't afford a girlfriend._ Angel might not be exactly "high maintenance," but Raph knows he has absolutely nothing to offer her. His favorite activities are training, drinking, and beating up thugs, and while he does enjoy the occasional movie, anything else he might do with a girl would get boring pretty quickly and he knows he doesn't have the patience to pretend to be interested in something he's not.

About the only thing he can think of to do with a girl that wouldn't get old quick doesn't have a mantra, because he won't even let himself think about it enough to forbid himself from it.

So he only uses the mantra in emergencies. Mostly he just punches things and tries to think about something else.

* * *

><p><em>When she hands him an apple he makes a face, and she lifts an eyebrow. He scuffs his toe on the floor, looking down.<em>

_ "Ate some bad apples when I was a kid," he says. He doesn't say that for a week a bag of rotten apples were all the food Master Splinter could find, and they'd had to eat them, even though they were making them sick, because it was still better than starving._

_ She retracts the apple and nods._

_ "I know what you mean," she says, and he thinks she does._

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><p>It's hard sometimes.<p>

It's hard when she sits down right next to him during movie night, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, and it's even harder when his brothers crowd onto the couch, turning it into one big press of bodies that is no doubt comforting and familial to everyone but him.

It's hard when he follows her (_for her own safety_) as she goes clubbing with her girlfriends, shedding layers as they dance and flirt and sweat.

It's really hard when she smiles at him, and pushes her hair back just so, her eyes peeking out at him from under her bangs which have inevitably fallen back across her face.

It's hard, but not as hard as when, after the movie, they stay up until 3 am talking, or when she says goodnight to her friends and joins him on the roof with coffee and quiet companionship. It's not as hard as when, after the hair has fallen across her face yet again, she makes a face, yanking at it and threatening to cut it all off and go bald like him.

It's hardest then, because it would be easier to ignore if it was nothing more than lust.


	3. roman holiday

_Thought I'd mention that the song I wrote this fic to is _Into Dust_ by Mazzy Star. It captures the mood of the fic well, I think.  
><em>

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><p>In the sewers they took whatever form of entertainment they could get. They were well over ten years old before gender considerations had any impact on their choice of toy, reading material, movies, anything. No one ever got on Raph's case about the fact that his favorite stuffed toy for years had been a Raggedy Ann doll. It was clean and the rips in it had been easily mended and it was red. The fact that it was a girl's toy hadn't registered, or if it had, hadn't mattered.<p>

With April in their lives, and later, Angel, they are subjected to yet more forms of feminine entertainment, especially on movie night. Every two months or so April's turn rolls around and they have to sit through a Jane Austen flick or something equally disgusting. (They know Casey's in love when he stops complaining as loudly about the movies on April's night.) She may love Rio Gato, but she loves Bridget Jones's Diary just as much. Before Angel comes along April takes her place as the only girl very seriously, and tries to educate them in the ways of femininity as best she can.

And so Raph knows how this is supposed to go. He's already developed feelings for a girl in his life. This girl is in some way forbidden him. In this case it's even got a bit of the Beauty and the Beast flavor to it. Next is the montage where it becomes clear that his feelings are impossible to ignore. He figures he's nearing the end of the montage (which is hell to live through, by the way) and so what is waiting for him now is The Crisis. Something will happen to put her in danger and then he will rescue her and she will realize that she has feelings for him as well. (If this is a bad movie, these feelings will in no way be apparent to the audience until this point.) She will either embrace these feelings or reject them, but either way there is usually a misunderstanding of some kind that forces them apart, but which ultimately leads to the realization that they need each other. Then the danger will reappear, bringing them together again, and once that is taken care of there will be, at maximum, five minutes of angst as the couple realizes that their love is impossible. Then a deus ex machina will appear to make it so that the star-crossed lovers can be together after all. Cue credits and sappy music.

It kills him that he will be stuck in the middle of a chick flick for the rest of his life.

* * *

><p>After a while Casey starts to notice.<p>

How the guy can be so damn clueless about some things and so sharp about others is a mystery to Raph, but one night after they've sated their bloodlust and are knocking back beers in celebration of a night where the butt-kicking had been mostly dealt from their side, Casey turns to him and mutters something.

"…huh?" Raph knows he sounds extra stupid, and blames it on the beer. Casey takes another swig; for courage, Raph thinks, and doesn't like the thought.

"Y'ever thought about… y'know, settling down? Having little mutant turtles and shit?"

Raph bares his teeth and his grip tightens around the bottle in his hand.

"Shaddap, Casey," he slurs, willing his friend to get the message and back off. But Casey's too drunk or too used to Raph's ways to be scared by his tone, and he keeps going like Raph hadn't said anything.

"Only I been thinking, you guys are, what, 21? And you ain't never had a girlfriend or nothing."

They're closer to 23, what with time-travel and so on, but Raph is more concerned with ending the conversation than correcting chronology.

"I'll kick your ass," he says a little too loudly. Casey snorts.

"Yeah, right." He takes another swig, and then adds in a mysterious mutter, "You better treat her right, or I'll kick _your_ ass."

Raph sucks in a breath to speak, and then lets it out again, unused. He does this two or three times, and then finally just says, anger dissipated in the face of bewilderment, "Who?"

Casey toasts the night sky with his bottle. "Angel."

Raph stands up and takes a sharp step away from the ledge they'd been dangling their feet from, then pauses and takes another step back. He stares down at the ground for a long moment, and then chucks the bottle (still half full) down off the building, roaring in frustration as he does so. Casey watches its decent with interest, chuckling drunkenly when it smashes on the pavement below. Raph sits down again and opens another bottle, and Casey waits until he's drained most of it before he speaks again.

"I think she likes you, man."

Raph gets up again, tottering back across the rooftop to Casey's bag. He has a vague plan of either smashing the contents one by one against the wall, or smashing them across Casey's big head, but when he reaches the bag he just sits down again.

"Doesn't matter," he mutters. Casey scoots around until he's facing his friend.

"Why not? You like her, don't'cha? And all her other boyfriends have been total assholes."

"I _am_ an asshole, asshole."

"Nah," Casey says, setting his bottle down and leaning his head back against the ledge. "Not like them."

Raph knows what he means, but best friend or not, Casey doesn't know everything about him, and so he stays silent, playing with the zipper on the golf ball compartment.

"You want I should put in a good word for you?" he offers after a while, and Raph finally lifts his head to pin Casey with a stare he normally reserved for Purple Dragons.

"You say one word to her I'll smash your teeth in."

Casey grunts. It's close enough to a yes that Raph looks back down at the golf bag.

"What's your problem, anyway? She ain't pretty enough for you or something?"

Raph throws the bottle in his hand at the wall, and it shatters spectacularly, the few mouthfuls of beer left in it spraying out in tiny droplets. He gets up with the intention of leaving, but Casey hooks his foot around his ankle and he smashes to the ground, prompting a wrestling match that Casey loses.

"Just shut up, okay?" Raph yells in his face. "You don't know shit!"

"What's there to know!" Casey yells back. "You like her, she likes you. What the hell else is there?"

The mantra comes to mind, but Raph is too drunk to try to explain it, so all he can do is yell again.

"You don't know shit!"

He slams Casey's shoulders down on the ground again, then sits back and breathes hard. Casey sits up, rubbing the back of his head, obviously waiting for Raph to elaborate. But he can't. So he just puts his head in his hands and wonders how on earth his friend can be so insightful and yet so thick.

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><p><em>He was five years old. Maybe six. It was hard to tell. It had definitely been five springs since their father had found them, and every spring when they had survived through another winter he told them their story. But this spring was different. This spring they had more than merely survived; this spring they had a home—a lair, as Mikey called it, and the name had stuck. They had gathered their meager possessions from the old Burrow and moved into their new home, Donnie helping their father make it more like what humans lived in. They had hot and cold running water now, and electricity. And today they were getting television.<em>

_ Donnie had been working with Splinter on fixing the one they'd found in the dump, and today it was ready. Raph and his other two brothers were bouncing with excitement as Donnie and Splinter set up the machine, plugging it in and turning it on. At first there was only static, which was exciting enough that the three of them had leapt up and down, shouting incoherently, but then Splinter made an adjustment to the antennae and a picture had come on the screen, fuzzy but distinct. That picture had burned itself into young Raphie's mind, and even now, years later when they had eleventy-million TV's and it was actually _boring_ to watch TV all the time, Raphael still pulled out that memory sometimes and looked at it, like an old postcard. It had been a long time before he even realized what he'd been seeing, and he could still picture the image with the filter of youth on it. During the hectic mess of April's wedding, during which he had actually seen the rare sight of wedding magazines strewn around the lair, he had pulled the picture out more and more such that it had begun to take on a different sheen, and then it was April's turn for movie night, and there it was._

_ The young actress smiled meaningfully but sadly at the man, whose dark eyes said he understood. Their connection was electric and palpable, their love easy to see. It was exactly like he remembered it. It was nothing like he remembered it. He left, not even bothering to make an excuse, and he'd felt not right in his own skin for days._

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><p>He would never have that.<p>

This was what made the memory burn so strangely whenever he brought it out. He'd thought it was a wedding he'd seen, which he'd always known he would never have, and that hurt. But seeing the movie again, seeing Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck separated by a trick of birth and circumstance, made the hurt flare up. He would never get married, and he'd made his peace with that, but he would never even have a fling or a one night stand. He would have nothing, for the rest of his life, and it made him want to punch things until they stopped moving.


	4. bitter comfort

_She didn't scream._

_ It's a small distinction, and anyway, she'd been more inclined to attack than run away, but it's something Raph has always appreciated. April is a sister, a mother, an aunt, but she had taken one look at them, screamed, and fainted. Angel hadn't. It's not exactly fair, and in the long run it doesn't really mean anything, but her fierce scowl at the sight of them can be cherished in a way April's hysterics cannot._

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><p>His shoulders tense and he goes still, stiller than he might were he hiding in shadows as a Foot ninja walked by. He can feel her mammalian warmth against his arm, her hand like lightning upon his thigh, her lips getting closer to his own. He stares into the middle distance, and takes his mind away…<p>

When he comes back, she's looking at him with an impossible-to-read expression on her face, and after studying him for a moment, she gets up and leaves. He doesn't relax.

* * *

><p>He reaches new levels of ferocity on the streets that night, and apparently they can tell the difference because when he twists Green Mohawk's arm halfway out of its shoulder as he flings him against a wall and then starts forward to do more damage, Purple Ponytail steps up behind him and protests against his uncharacteristic brutality in a whiny Bronx accent that has always grated on Raph's ears.<p>

He takes the hand that had almost landed on his shoulder and breaks it; but then he leaves, because the guy has a point; though he hadn't realized he'd been such a fixture in these punks' lives that they could read his moods by the way he fought. It creeps him out.

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><p>Angel avoids him after that. Raph can't even manage to pretend to be glad.<p>

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><p><em>Casey told him once that the year they'd disappeared had been the year Angel finally let her purple hair grow out black. He informed him that he'd asked her once why she'd kept her bangs purple, and she'd smiled a pained smile and told him she was waiting for the right moment. Casey had given him a meaningful look and posited that she probably meant she was waiting for the right person. <em>

_Raph had pretended not to know what he meant._

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><p>"Why not?" she asks, without preamble, though Raph knows exactly what she's talking about. He hunches his shoulders, wishing she'd kept going with the avoidance thing, and turns slightly away from her, though not far enough not to see the fierce frown that breaks out on her face. "Don't you dare run away from me, Raphael. You at least have to give me an explanation."<p>

He hates it when he remembers how young she was when they first met, but he does so now, and it startles him into answering.

"Like hell I owe you an explanation."

"Oh, yes you do." She gets right in his face, meeting his gaze without flinching, even though he knows he's giving off that insane animal vibe that has the younger or less brave (or smarter) PDs running for cover every time they see it. "You can't just turn down the only girl who's ever offered without telling her _why_."

This is too much.

"How do you know you're the only one?" Even as he says this he wishes he sounded more worldly; instead he merely sounds like a petulant child. She arches an eyebrow and folds her arms over her chest.

"Oh? This I gotta hear."

"None of your business," he growls, and she laughs.

"You're fulla shit, Raph," she says affectionately. "Always have been."

"Have not." Now he definitely sounds like a child, and his only saving grace is that she joins in.

"Have too."

"Have not."

"Have too! Like that story you told me about the giant motorbikes on another planet. I mean, come on."

He grins almost ferally, and at last she falters, hands falling to her sides, face softening into a small frown.

"Anyway, you can lie to me, but you gotta give me something."

His chest aches, and he longs to be elsewhere.

"No," he says stubbornly, unwilling to tell the truth, but unable to lie. She just studies him, arms folded again, lower lip stuck out slightly in a very distracting way. It turns into a staring contest that he loses.

"Alright, fine!" He flings up his hands and starts pacing, feeling very caged. "Yeah, you caught me, there's no reason not to, hooray. I'll just grab my coat and we can go have dinner and a movie. And after that!" he exclaims, flinging his arms up as his voice rises in pitch, "We'll get some ice cream! Then I can walk you home and I'll give you a goodnight kiss on your front porch, and you can wear my freakin' letterman's jacket to school. Oh, wait," he says bitterly, choking out the words now, "Wrong species. Never mind."

Her face stays mostly impassive, though her brow furrows in what he just knows is sympathy when the words turn bitter. At "never mind," he turns on his heel and jumps off the roof where they'd been talking, feeling claustrophobic despite the wide sky above him. She runs to the side of the building and looks out, down, and around, trying to spot him, but he's already vanished.

* * *

><p>He knows he's doing the right thing, but it's a bitter comfort.<p> 


	5. a paper thin wall

Whenever she looks at him now it's with a sad expression on her face, but she doesn't try to talk to him again. She comes around less and less, and he stops following her, stops running into her, and tries, desperately, to stop thinking about her.

Months go by.

Mike gets a girlfriend.

* * *

><p>Raph stands off to the side as Mike and Jennifer make the announcement. No one seems very surprised. No one but Raph.<p>

When Mike turns his eyes toward his last brother, the one who hasn't given him his congratulations yet, Raph has already slipped out.

* * *

><p>It's not raining.<p>

It should be. His life is one big movie, right? When it's not being a monster movie or a sci-fi film it's a chick flick, and he's standing on the top of a building at night, the animal inside him a paper-thin wall away from clawing out of his chest. Were there a crack of thunder to bury it in, he would roar at the sky. But as it is, he stands there, the city lit up below him, its rhythms and harsh drumbeats familiar and suffocating, and though the sky is cloudy no rain falls.

He can see Angel's apartment from here.

Aw, hell. Why not.

He jumps down to the roof of the adjacent building, leaps across an alleyway to the next, and with every jump he can feel one hand unclenching from around his heart and another one start to squeeze.

* * *

><p>"Mikey got a girlfriend."<p>

She looks up impassively from hunching over the coffee table where she is doing her homework, one eyebrow raised, as though it hasn't been over a month since they'd spoken.

"Yeah?" she says, sounding almost wary. He makes himself at home on the armchair across from her, his relaxed posture a lie.

"Yeah. Some chick he met online playing Halo. She's a furry, can you believe that? Thinks she's a fox."

"That's pretty crazy," she agrees vaguely. "Raph, what are you doing here?"

He freezes, the hand closing around his heart starting to squeeze his lungs too.

"Just thought you'd like to know," he says guardedly. She sighs, and puts down her pencil, leaning back onto the couch cushions.

"What do you think about it?" He knows that's not really the question she's asking, but mind games aren't his forte, and he tries to answer honestly.

"I think it's dangerous."

Too honest. She raises both eyebrows. He can still see the scar from where she'd taken out her eyebrow piercing, and he looks at it instead of her eyes.

"What do you mean, dangerous?"

It's a good question, one he doesn't know the answer to himself, though he feels it fiercely. Getting this close to humans is dangerous. But he can't say why.

"Never mind," he says, getting up. Faster than he'd thought she was capable of, Angel is on her feet, and she moves swiftly between him and the window.

"No, Raph," she says, scowling just like she used to when she was thirteen and still had delusions of being some kind of street warrior. "You can't keep running away."

"M'not running away," he protests reflexively.

"Yes, you are," she says stubbornly, arms crossed over her chest, and it really is as though the months have not happened, because they are right where they had been the last time he'd walked away. Run away. The only difference is that the purple of her bangs has grown out, and nearly an inch of black roots are showing. He thinks it looks weird, but it does nothing to make her any less beautiful.

"M'not," he mutters, looking away, and she hears it for what it is: defeat.

"Raph, look," and she runs her hand through her hair, looking weary. "I can't be what you need me to be. You need someone who's willing to drag you kicking and screaming into a relationship, and I can't do that. I like you. A lot. But I can't. I just… After Marcus…"

Raph remembers Marcus, the jerk. He remembers breaking his jaw, and his fist clenches just thinking about it. She sees the fist, and her shoulders slump.

"I got an essay to write," she says, and sits back down on the couch, looking as tiny as she really is.

"I can't be what you need either," Raph blurts out, quivering. He feels more naked than a mere lack of clothes could ever make him feel. "So there."

Her mouth quirks up in a sad smile, but she doesn't look up from her homework.

"Good night, Raph."

"I'm not running away," he blurts out again, even though that's exactly what he wants to do. But he has never run from danger, and he will not start now. Her pencil wavers at his outburst, but she doesn't look up. "I—" he starts again. "I'm not… I'm not good at— at this kinda stuff." Abruptly he drops his gaze to the floor and grips the pommels of his sais, but he stands his ground. He doesn't know if Angel is even looking at him, but he doesn't care. "But if you wanna try, then… so do I."

He clenches his eyes shut, waiting for her to tell him to get lost, but after a long moment where nothing happens, he opens his eyes and dares to look up at her. It is the bravest thing he's ever done.

She's still sitting on the couch, but she's looking at him, and the expression on her face is one he's never seen before. It looks almost amused.

"Did you just ask me out, Raphael?" she asks teasingly. Heart in his mouth, he meets her eyes and nods sharply; once, twice. She smiles, slowly, and leans back, bringing her arms up to rest on the back of the couch. When he doesn't move, she beckons to him with one hand.

"Aw, get over here, you," she says, and he uses what is left of his pride not to run to her.

* * *

><p><em>Fin<em>


End file.
